"What d'you think, Pigott?" asked another.
"I won't have Alf Caspar in my yard," replied the Manager with characteristic emphasis. "I know Alf."
"Then that settles it," said the chairman.
Alf rightly attributed his defeat to his old schoolmaster.
"So you've turned me down, Mr. Pigott," he said, stopping the other in Church Street a few days later.
Mr. Pigott, like most professing pacifists, was always ready for a fight.
"I thought you wanted to be a master-man!" he cried. "And here you're applying for a job as a wage-slave—to use your own term."
Alf was white, trembling, and sour-faced.
"All I want is a fair chance," he said doggedly. "And if I don't get it there'll be trouble." He came a step closer. His eyes were down, and he looked dangerous. "See here, Mr. Pigott—if you turn on full-steam same time you seal up the safety-valve, something'll burst. That's science, that is."
Mr. Pigott was not at all dismayed.